Transcript of How to Use Anxiety to Thrive with Dr. David H. Rosmarin

[Music] [Music] hi everyone Thank you so much for tuning in to today's author talk series brought to you by the library speakers consortium The Library Speakers Consortium is a partnership of more than 500 library systems across the US Canada and New Zealand with the goal of making author talks more accessible to communities of all sizes I am Brandon Adler your host and moderator in conversation with each of the acclaimed authors that you will hear from throughout our series Today we are so honored to have psychologist and author Dr David H Rosemary with us to talk about his book Thriving with Anxiety: Nine Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You Before we jump in I want to give you all that standard housekeeping information that keeps everything running smoothly and then we'll turn things over to Dr Rosemary So we have compiled some questions that were presubmitted with registration but we welcome you to submit questions during the presentation by clicking that questions button that's just below the live stream video There are quite a few of you tuning in today and so we will take as many questions as we can during that Q&A period Um as a reminder there is going to be a link uh sent out to you for the recording in about 24 hours So if you have to leave early for any reason don't worry about that Now what if I told you that learning to work with anxiety instead of fighting it could be the key to unlocking your greatest potential Today Dr Dr Rose Marin a Harvard Medical School professor clinical psychologist and the author of Thriving with Anxiety is going to talk to you Um he'll challenge everything we think we know about anxiety and offer practical tools to turn it from a burden to a benefit Just a little bit more about Dr Roseman Marin He's also the founder of the Center for Anxiety He and his team have treated more than 10,000 patients and published more than a 100 research articles on mental health His work has been featured in the New York Times the Wall Street Journal Good Morning America and TED X So I would like to now welcome Dr Rose Marin I'm going to turn things over to you Thank you so much for being here Thank you Brandon Really appreciate that wonderful introduction and everything you're doing uh to make this and other programs available to uh a broad a broad audience I'm going to share my screen So let me know if that works window There we go Okay How's that look Brandon That looks good Great Because I was anxious Um it's a bit ironic to be speaking about anxiety to uh a library uh group because what's the most stressful or anxiety thing that you bump into in a library right maybe overdue fines you know maybe someone being a little bit loud Um but in all seriousness anxiety shows up everywhere literally everywhere today even in the library And what I'd like to explore is really what Brandon mentioned What if anxiety what if it's not a flaw What if it's not a disease What if it's a human emotion What if it's something that we all experience It's actually a part of humanity And what if since it's just a part of humanity what if it can be used to help us to thrive to help us to flourish to make our lives more connected more meaningful more productive just better So these uh ideas that I'm going to present to you today they are based on my book They are also based on a TEDex talk that I gave uh which is now found on TED.com You can actually sk scan that QR code So if at any point during this talk I get boring just flip over to YouTube check it out Um or you can bookmark it and see it later Um so um I hope you will and uh you can also uh get in touch with me and let me know your thoughts in order to orient our conversation today I wanted to start with a question and I I'm turning this over to you So please scan this QR code now and respond It's totally anonymous You won't be able to be tracked and your responses will appear on the screen but obviously not with your name or any identifying information And the question I want to ask you is this Do you feel overwhelmed by the state of the world today Responses are coming in and it's pretty clear which horse is winning this race We've responses from 500 people at this point and numbers are still coming in and still going up Pretty amazing to see Only 2% saying no only 4% saying rarely and basically twothirds twothirds saying yes frequently the top anchor on the four-point scale and one-third saying yes sometimes which is also in the affirmative Now I am actually most concerned on this screen by the people who said no because if you don't feel overwhelmed by the state of the world right now then that's an indication that something is wrong Personally I certainly have felt overwhelmed sometime sometime somewhere between sometimes and frequently And if you look at what's going on here is just a a just a couple of major world events over the past five years and I haven't even included 2025 Takes us from the COVID pandemic to the capital riots to Russia's invasion of Ukraine the AI boom and all sorts of concerns unrest in the Middle East and the US presidential election If you look step back and look at the world my thesis is as follows The problem is not that we experience anxiety The problem is that we've been taught to fear a basic aspect of our humanity We need to level set and we have to understand that when people have stress when the world is experiencing unrest we will experience we will have heart palpitations shortness of breath muscle tension difficulty catching our breath difficulty sleeping at night We're going to experience those symptoms We're wired for that And it's not a bad thing Once we have accepted once we've done that level set and understood that anxiety is part of the human condition I experience it You experience it Everyone you know experiences it except for a couple people on the last screen And those people again I'm most concerned about In fact of all the people who have to reach out to me it's them It's you who said no Once we've accepted that anxiety is part of the landscape of being human we can unleash its power to drive connection to drive awareness self-awareness to drive being human and actually to drive creativity And my goal today is to turn everything you know about anxiety on its head by framing it as an emotion not a disorder and more important give you a four-step process in how to turn anxiety from your enemy into your ally I want to tell you how I came to these conclusions It's a pretty crazy story At the start of the pandemic I got very very anxious My center for anxiety which is a a clinic that I founded which has offices in New York and Boston had at that time about 500 active CL clients and about 25 active staff And I was very nervous that these individuals who were under my care who were experiencing anxiety clinical anxiety anxiety disorders prior to the pandemic were going into this very difficult period of uncertainty economic uncertainty health uncertainty social uncertainty with um all of the vicissitudes of that era the isolation the um uh just the difficulty uh dealing with the realities of the time And every time I glanced at my phone it made me panic because I was wondering is this going to be one of the clients who's you know maybe um become suicidal or something's gone wrong with one of my clinicians And it was a very anxious and difficult time because I didn't know what was going to happen two or three months into the pandemic I turned around and I was really amazed quite flabbergasted Now my immediate response was to get busy You know we rallied the troops we figured out how to pivot everything to tell in just two weeks But a couple months later I turned back and I said 'You know what I'm observing is that our clients who had anxiety disorders going into the pandemic and who were arguably the highest risk for having significant substantial debilitating anxiety during that period were actually doing quite well So I turned to my colleagues and I said "Are you seeing the same?" And they said "Yes." And I emailed many colleagues in other centers and other cities and other countries even and they told me the same thing the same story was emerging that clients who were receiving professional psychotherapy with anxiety disorders for anxiety disorders prior to the pandemic were actually doing fairly well in May June and July of 2020 So I wrote an article about it for Prevention magazine I wanted to be a little cheeky so I entitled it the blessing of an anxiety disorder And it contained my initial observations that clients who had an anxiety disorder prior to the pandemic were actually blessed because they came in and they dealt with it and they got the skills and the tools that they needed And therefore once the pandemic hit they actually knew what to do They had a different perspective on anxiety They had a different toolkit They knew how to turn this into something to thrive People who had never had anxiety disorders before though they did not have those tools They did not have those skills So when they came into the pandemic in March and April 2020 they were sitting ducks And we all know what happened to anxiety and depression during that period In the general population it spiked by some estimates by 25% more among adults and 50% more among young adults and adolesccents but not for individuals who had anxiety disorders I did not expect that I would receive over a hundred emails from around the world from patients from clients saying the same thing Hey I had an anxiety disorder and I went into the pandemic and I knew what to do and everyone around me was crumbling but I actually knew what to do and I'm feeling better now than I ever have Pouring in of information So after the pandemic was done last year I shouldn't say done but a after we had dug ourselves out I teamed up with my wonderful colleague Dr Steven Puritinsky in New York and we looked at the data from Center for Anxiety and I couldn't believe what I saw In brief clients who came in prior to March 2020 had did not have an increase in anxiety at any point between March and December of 2020 This is an astounding finding with 764 clients presenting to Center for Anxiety over the course of the entirety of the year of 2020 that individuals with pre-existing anxiety disorders scientifically empirically as a group did not have an uptick in anxiety during one of the most stressful and difficult periods in recent human history Among preandemic patients there was not an increase in anxiety during the pandemic's acute phase And we published this in a journal called PL one It's actually open access and you can look it up and take a look on your phone anytime you like That experience going through the pandemic feeling anxious myself having it helped me to rally to become more of a clinical leader within my within within my office going through the experience of panicking myself and then realizing that my my patients who had anxiety actually could use that as a catalyst to growth it turned everything about anxiety on its head for me because I had been taught I had been taught that it's a disorder It's a disease always and it's always a problem and it's something we have to reduce It's something we have to get rid of It's not something that's compatible with healthy living And after this experience over the last really five years I've been on a different track and I stepped back and I realized that many great leaders in the world have experienced anxiety and because of their anxiety they became great Because of their anxiety they became great I'll start with Sir Winston Churchill who's on the left side of your screen I found an amazing anecdote that early in his career the first time he stood up in the House of Commons in London to make a speech as a politician he froze for three full minutes Three full minutes He couldn't speak because he was so anxious And after that experience he said "I'm not going to let anxiety get in my way." and he practiced and he pushed and he focused his energies towards conquering that anxiety and as a result it made him not in not just into an un anxious or not stressed out speaker It made him into one of the greatest ortors of the 20th century somebody who led the free world the the the UK certainly through the through the second world war Oprah Winfrey has a similar story although a little different In the 1990s she had a box office flop One of her movies did not do well I think the only one ever And she turned to food She became emotionally emotionally numb And and at one point ate 30 pounds of macaroni and cheese And in her state of anxiety at some point she said "You know what I can't control everything." And she let go Once she did that she turned around and said "I'm going to focus my efforts on what I can and I'm going to let go of the rest." She became a media icon using that philosophy which she keeps to this day To this very day she's somebody who puts in her greatest effort and then she lets go Amazingly I think it's one of the secrets to her success and she learned it during a period of anxiety And finally speaking of icons Taylor Swift the first time she sang the national anthem at a football game she couldn't get up to speak She couldn't get up to uh to to sing And what she ended up doing was sharing her feelings with her friends with her with her colleagues with her family and most of all with her fans She speaks about anxiety all the time in her songs Her lyrics reference it And now well she can shake it off To be very clear sometimes anxiety it interferes with your life and that's called clinical anxiety Clinical anxiety And yes clinical anxiety is and can be a disorder But that's when it interferes You can't go to school You can't go to work You can't do what you need to do When we have clinical anxiety we need professional help Whether that's medication or whether that's psychotherapy But other times many many times I would say most of the time anxiety it's uncomfortable but it doesn't disrupt our day-to-day You know if you look back people are experiencing higher levels of clinical anxiety The second leading cause of of death today is suicide There actually more suicides than homicides Second lead cause of death for young people under age 35 I should say if you also look at self-injury people are injuring themselves harming themselves today even pre- teenagers ages 10 11 12 tender ages are harming themselves by cutting or burning some estimates are one in 20 pre-teens 5% and up to 25% of college students it's also one of the number one reasons why people go on disability today is anxiety and depression So I'm not undermining that anxiety can be debilitating It can be I've worked in clinical psychology in acute psychiatry for 20 years I know the realities and I'm not whitewashing this But I want to contrast that with something else In middle inome countries like Brazil and Mexico there's half as much anxiety as we have in the United States And get this in low-income countries like Colombia and Peru where this young woman is from there is half as much anxiety as we have in middle inome countries which means that this girl who lives in a Peruvian village that does not have running water She is 25% as likely as her same aged friend living in the United States who has an iPhone who comes home to HVAC has multiple bathrooms drives on engineered surfaces to and from school She is that American kid is four times as likely to have an anxiety disorder compared to this young young girl By the way take a look at her smile I hate to ask this question but when's the last time you saw a six-year-old American child smile like that Now if you're wondering what on earth is going on why would it be that countries with malnutrition and less security and less financial stability have decreased risk for anxiety compared to the United States which has the highest prevalence and severity of mental disorders in the history of mankind To put it differently why are the most privileged people ever to walk planet Earth also the most anxious And I think it comes down to this This is our approach When we feel anxious we try to erase it We try to remove it from our lives We try to squelch it and distance ourselves from it We pretend it's not there Our first reaction is to get rid of it We reduce the discomfort We don't embrace it We become more insular and we hide our feelings as opposed to sharing it We try to increase our certainty We try to increase our control instead of letting go And all of that sends us into a cycle a negative cycle Because the more we try to erase anxiety the worse it gets If we think immediately when you feel anxious I shouldn't be feeling this way These feelings are something I need to be afraid of Physiologically that will increase your level of adrenaline Adrenaline goes up when we perceive a threat So if anxiety is perceived as a threat the moment you feel anxious your adrenaline will increase and your anxiety will compound This cycle of having initial anxiety interpreting that as a failure interpreting that that something's wrong and then having an adrenaline dump which increases our heart rate and our breathing rate and our muscle tension and our stomach upset takes us down a cycle which is creating the a cascade a cascade of mental distress And that result I believe is the main reason we feel anxious today Why our society as opposed to others as opposed to others is so bent on is so is so is so is is in such stress It's because we are so bent on getting rid of our anxiety That young woman in Peru she doesn't expect to be in control She doesn't judge herself when she feels anxious or stressed She knows that it's because there's political unrest It's because there's a real threat It's because she's at risk for malnutrition So she doesn't judge herself She understands that anxiety is part of life And then she uses it to connect with her friends to connect with her family to live the best life she can and she's happier for it Now I want to make something very clear about about medication In rich countries citizens immediately tend to immediately reach for pharmarmacological and medication interventions in order to relieve their distress as opposed to accepting that some degree of anxiety is part of the puzzle It's part of the picture and then learning to use it in an appropriate way Now I want to be very clear I am not against pharmarmacology I am not against the use of psychiatric medications When people have clinical anxiety clinical disorders that are interfering with their life if a person cannot function day-to-day they probably need medication and psychotherapy to get things down to a medium level But if the goal is to get rid of anxiety completely If the goal is to live a life free of any distress then we get into trouble because that creates the cascade Invariably some anxiety will remain and then people go back to their doctor The meds aren't working and then they get another and then they get a higher dose and then that doesn't work because we cannot cure cure all of anxiety It's just an emotion We can get anxiety down to a manageable middle range using pharmarmacology using medication but we cannot get rid of it entirely And if people have that misperception well it creates it creates real issues Today unfortunately even low levels of anxiety are enough to warrant a medical diagnosis many practitioners many um uh I would say many PCPs in particular prescribing medications do so for somebody coming in with any level of anxiety as opposed to for debilitating levels of anxiety People have some level of anxiety They need skills and tools and friends and self-care 100% We need to be able to tolerate it The way I like to think about it is this Anxiety is on a zero to 10 scale Okay Nobody has a zero and hopefully no one has a 10 So we're left with 1 to nine 1 2 and three are low Four five six are medium and 7 8 9 are high If you have a 7 eight or nine you're going to need medication Certainly psychotherapy A four five or six you might But a 1 two or a three is normal That is part of the human condition But in many doctor's offices when you're asked if you have any anxiety if the answer is even a one or a two then people will receive a prescription Beyond medicine there are thousands actually tens of thousands of solutions to get rid of anxiety today like bombs and mantras and meditations and all sorts of therapies And on the one hand this makes sense because you don't want to have anxiety It's uncomfortable But on the other hand on the other hand let's be very clear Physiologically speaking anxiety is not dangerous in of itself Our reaction to anxiety is dangerous Our behavioral responses can be dangerous our interpretation that it is always a problem and our judgment of ourselves and what we do in the context of that judgment that shame the guilt the feeling terrible about it that is dangerous But the actual feelings are not dangerous It feels like death when your heart is going a mile a minute and when your breathing is labored and when your stomach is in knots it feels like death But physiologically speaking anxiety will not kill you I have never had a patient die from high anxiety alone and none of my colleagues ever had a patient die from high anxiety alone Often people will come to the emergency room saying they're having a heart attack when it's just a panic attack and they're sent home usually with some Adavan But people don't die because of anxiety Yet we relentlessly pursue an anxiety-free life We relentlessly pursue it And that pursuit that's increasing our anxiety on mass at its root at its root we are obsessed with being in control In high-income countries citizens are accustomed to having a sense of control to predict everything to be in the know all of our checks and all of our balances and all the accutrants of the modern age And as a result we can't handle it when things are out of our control in low and middle inome nations Well citizens don't real they realize they're not in control They realize they're not in control not only of their externals but they realize that there's some degree that their emotions are also unpredictable and they've made peace with it We need to do the same This is my model of anxiety today Beneath the surface of this beautiful image of a plant growing there's a seed that either was planted or fell into the ground And with water and time and some oxygenation the seed started to rot and it became a mess And that rotting casing of the seed became the first nutrients which fueled the growth of the plant The plant ate the seed because it would decay because it became putrid and wretched And this is my model of anxiety today We need to change our relationship with anxiety And instead of getting rid of that mess instead of clearing it out we need to use it as fuel for growth So we can become ourselves So we can become ourselves And when we take this perspective what we see is that anxiety can do many great things for us Great things It can increase your resilience and it can strengthen your connection with others Perhaps most important of all it can help you It can help you to let go of control Let me show you how going to the gym physically It makes us sweaty and uncomfortable and out of breath and it even can cause mild pain at times We feel winded Why do we do this Look at this gentleman on the screen He's sweating He's heaving He's working super hard And he's becoming a beast He's becoming mentally and physically strong And that's why he does it Well anxiety is the same way That resistance the physical resistance is the same as the mental resistance Have you ever heard of exposure therapy Exposure therapy It's a variant of cognitive behavior therapy and it involves confronting the anxiety that you experience in order to become more resilient I'll tell you a story There was a patient I met Her name was Nicole We'll call her Nicole And she had hypochondriasis She had health anxiety She thought that she had an aneurysm in her brain although she did not And she was terrified that her anxiety would spike and her brain would explode and she would die which was not going to happen She had been to neurologists and been cleared there was no physical risk But she couldn't shake the thought because of her anxiety And she started to withdraw from daily activities because she didn't want her anxiety to spike and her brain to go And we used exposure therapy She embraced her anxiety by going to a neurology award by watching videos about aneurysms and by doing things beyond her comfort zone like traveling without a phone without the ability to contact people And she overcame her obsessions And she graduated from therapy I was so so proud of her She worked extremely hard And two years later the phone rang Nicole was pregnant with a baby boy and in utero unbelievably the doctors had detected that that baby had an aneurysm And I was terrified that Nicole would freak out and she would go back to having hypochondriasis and become debilitated But she didn't She found the strength She found the inner strength because she had been through it before to tolerate the incredible uncertainty the incredible adversity the risk And her baby was brought into the world and had life-saving surgery and survived And she did too She did great Today he's a healthy and adorable little kid But more importantly Nicole she's just a rock star She's a rockstar resilient mom who doesn't let anxiety get in her way or in her kids' way or in her family's way because she pushed against it And if you want to get rid of your anxiety you will miss out on this opportunity to use it to build resilience By doing things that make you anxious even just once a week it can transform your level of mental fitness and resilience So you will be able to handle other other vicitudes of life with real grace Let's talk about relationships and how anxiety can strengthen your connection and your intimacy There's an irony a great irony of human relationships On the one hand on the one hand we are social beings and we are infinitely stronger when we feel connected to others The Harvard study of adult development Dr Robert Waldinger has clearly shown us that the relationships the closeness of our relationships at age 50 and 60 is the greatest predictor of a healthy life a well-being at age 80 and beyond more than IQ more than physical health and much more than socioeconomic status We thrive when we are connected to others especially romantic relationships but any But on the other hand in order to create intimate connections we actually have to be vulnerable So we're strongest with our connection But the way to get there requires being vulnerable Because when you open up to someone when you share with them your pain and your difficulty when they hear you and validate you and you feel connected to them as a result you have used your anxiety you have used your difficulty and become embracing it through vulnerability have actually created more connection and intimacy in your life We've all done this If we're terrified of something and we share it with someone and they give us a listening ear If someone is afraid of something and they open up to us and we take them out for coffee and we put an arm on their shoulder and we say "I'm here for you." That's all it takes Just being human But the process on our end is admitting and acknowledging vulnerability acknowledging our anxiety and being there for others when they do the same If and when we do this we create intimacy and connection I'll add something here I know people who really are not connected to others Their relationships are strained Their relationships are disconnected They feel anxious and they don't acknowledge it Some of them can't Unfortunately sometimes it's hard to share our relation our anxiety in a way that others will hear and to help others to support us to choose others who will support us It's dynamic and it's challenging But in those cases especially in those cases the training the skill is to learn how to open up to certain people And when we do so we can start to thrive in amazing ways Let's talk about control Who here likes to lose control right No you don't No one likes to lose control But as long as you anticipate it and as long as you're willing doesn't it feel really good to let go To let go Neurobiologically anxiety shares the same physiology as excitement They both involve the fightor-flight response I mentioned adrenaline beforehand I like roller coasters When I'm going up a roller coaster and hear it's going up there I see I have this eager anticipation My stomach starts to drop My heartbeat starts to rise My breathing starts to labor I feel a little bit of tension And I'm so excited for that Yeah And I let go It's the same physiology It's the same neurobiology as when I feel anxious But there's only one difference In the one I'm trying to when I'm feeling anxious I'm trying to hold on to control And on the roller coaster I'm letting go I'm intentionally I'm specifically saying I don't have control I'm not in the no And that's okay And that's okay Now there are lots of ways to do this Action and adventure movies spontaneous trips playing competitive games going to a new restaurant taking your relationship to the next level These trigger our adrenaline because they're new and they're exciting and we don't know what's going to happen but we pursue them anyway And that's what anxiety teaches us That's what anxiety is there for The physiological response is there for us to harness So we can let go not so it can control us And when we accept that well life is a completely different dimension I want to make this very practical As we round out our conversation today I want to give you four steps to use anxiety to thrive in your life practically Tactically one two three and four What can you do today to implement some of these ideas that we've talked about to learn to use anxiety to thrive in your relationship with yourself in your relationship with others in your life in general Now of course when people have clinical anxiety these four steps are not enough If anxiety is debilitating if it's getting in the way of your life please don't just use this approach Get psychotherapy maybe get medication do what you need in order to get your anxiety to a mid-range where you can deal with it and it's not debilitating If it's uncomfortable not debilitating that's okay Then you can use these steps Ready Here are the four steps Identify share embrace and let go Identify share embrace and let go Let's go through each one Identify In our culture which is so terrified of anxiety we don't like to think about what makes us anxious We put it out of our mind We think about anything else We distract ourselves with our phones We do anything and everything we can to not think about that which is making our heart rate increase which is making our breathing more rapid Please stop Take a minute and think about what is making you anxious Take a couple minutes Take half an hour Take an hour Go for a walk and and just think it through Just think it through Understand that anxiety is is something we have to um give some thought to We have to give it some thought some inner work before we can use it in other ways to thrive Number two share Once you've identified what you're afraid of talk to someone about it By the way if you're having trouble talking to someone about their anxiety and getting them to hear you it's probably because you haven't really felt it If you have something on your mind that really feels anxious and you convey that emotion in the moment usually that'll get other people's attention Not always but usually So just a little tip over there Once you've identified really gone to the depth of it share it with someone else with a co-orker or a friend or talk to a therapist If you're not ready to have a conversation that's fine Put it into an email but share it in another way Get it off your mind and share it with someone who will validate you and who'll understand it But taking that leap and being vulnerable that's how we cultivate connection and relationships with others Step three embrace Remember Nicole you do it too There are many situations in your life where you have embraced anxiety You've done something that makes you anxious even though it makes you anxious because you knew it was something you wanted to do because it was something you needed to do and you became stronger as a result Just keep doing that same thing Our worlds have become so small so small Especially for young people today with the distraction of technology of video games of social media the world has become very small We need to get out of that virtual world and into our lives embracing the anxiety and the challenges that come with the real world Embrace it Do things that make you feel anxious Let your anxiety ride and do it anyway At least once a week like I said before do something that makes you feel anxious It's kind of like going to the gym And finally let go You're human We're human We can't predict everything We can't control everything we can't know everything And when we accept that our true essence can actually come out Then we can learn how to dream and do what we really can do in this world which is limited But it's something great But only when we let go Only when we let go of that which we cannot which we cannot change So I'm very excited to share this with you today these four steps And for those who want to learn more um you are welcome to scan this QR code and to check out a to join a wait list for a workshop It's a workshop that I've delivered a couple times in the past and uh we're going to be doing another round of it Um so please get in touch with me either way This is to my website and I'd love to hear from you Um you can also join the web the weight list for the workshop by texting anxiety to 66 66866 Um you can send that um from your phone SMS anytime from an American or Canadian carrier Um and again either way I'd just love to hear from people what you're thinking about this how this is resonating with you Um and also another thing I would love to get your feedback on today's talk Um this is a uh another QR code and um I ask you to please scan it Um or you can go to that uh URL and when prompted you can put in the word the code word library um to give me feedback in order that um I can um improve these talks and uh also to be able to to just deliver this material because we are living in a very anxious time primarily because of our response to anxiety because of our perspective on anxiety we've seeing it as something pathological as opposed to part of the human condition And yes it can be clinical but not always Once we embrace that and once we come back to being human and accepting accepting the anxiety and stress that is part of the human condition we can use it to become more aware to connect with others to pursue our dreams with renewed strength and vigor and connection And I truly hope this was helpful to you Now for the best part of all is your questions and our discussion Brandon I would love to hear what people are seeing in the chat and what they've submitted in advance So fire away Let's have Yeah Well let's start Thank you so much by the way Um what a wonderful presentation I want to start with Ann's question Ann says "I love thinking of anxiety this way but how can I tell when anxiety is pointing me towards something meaningful versus just mental noise It's not all meaningful is it Great question Um that's a really good question Ann Please get in touch with me because um I would love to hear more about uh about your journey It sounds like you've um um really given us a lot of thought It is all meaningful in that when we probe our anxiety it can show us what we're afraid of and what our values are I'll give you an example I grew up I'll talk about my p myself personally Um financial anxiety really gets to me It's an Achilles for me And um I grew up my father was an accountant uh by training and an entrepreneur by um by um profession And when I decided to go into clinical psychology in the helping profession it was a real um challenge for me because would I be leaving behind the business world um and uh you know looking at something which was you know substantially less profitable and uh you know as an author and as a as a speaker um and uh that was a real challenge for me but I had to face that anxiety and and bring it out and once I recognized that and was able to deal with it it became a point of connection with actually with my father and with my with my wife with my family with my clients And once I was able to deal with that and go through the the mental resilience of facing it and pursuing my dream despite my anxiety it opened up new vistas So that's just my personal story Um but I do think it always has meaning when we go through these four steps If we identify what it is and share it with others embrace it and then learn how to let go of what we can't control there's there's so much depth and meaning there and a great journey that we can all that we can all go move towards So that's been my experience Anyway I hope that's helpful Okay Yeah So you're you saying that you have like financial anxiety Sam is asking a similar question but kind of reconciliation reconciling two contradictions Sam says your comment saying that in moderate income areas the cause of problems is that we are trying to erase anxiety I'm seeing the opposite in society today anxiety is being used as an excuse sometimes Specifically my young adult child seems to be getting worse since seeing a therapist They're treating anxiety as a disease How do you reconcile the two contradictions I think that's exactly it When we view anxiety as a disease and something that we have to give into all the time that's specifically what makes things worse I I do think we are overdiagnosing I do think we are um over medicating I do think we are treating all forms of distress and strain as a disease as opposed to a part of the human condition And I think young adults are struggling the most This is exactly the cultural piece that we have to change in middle inome countries That's not the case It's understood that it's going to be difficult and well you got to get you know your uh cart out and go and sell your wares and you have to go to work because otherwise you're not going to eat and you have to do what you got to do Um and that's part of life So people are actually able to tolerate the the challenges of real day real life much more than they are One of my colleagues has a very funny word for this He calls it affluenza His name is Dr David Palovitz um in New York affluenza right the more wealthy a affluent people are the more they are likely to struggle with these mental health concerns so what you're seeing and I'm seeing is exactly the same and thank you for your comments okay we do have we do have quite a few questions about um about children and teens and students so I'm going to combine a couple of them since they're kind of similar um Danielle is saying as a teacher how do I help my students thrive with anxiety Likewise um Edna says "Any pointers to help teenagers um deal with high pressures of school?" Great Um I love speaking to teachers and doing workshops for um educational organizations because teachers get it You're dealing with this day-to-day and you see the challenge that kids young adults and children and teens are facing today Um I would encourage your students to voluntarily to willingly to want to do things that make them anxious Just like people get fired up about going to the gym to build physical muscles we need to get fired up and fire up our kids about doing things that make them mentally um resilient and mentally more connected Great So if I have one tip I mean I wish every school in America would have not only physical education but a mental education and mental education specifically that we would provide opportunities for kids to do one thing every week that makes them face their anxiety The the whole country would be different That's that's really interesting especially when you think of it in the context of um Tanya's question She says she has guilt that she made her child anxious So kind of like getting that out you know once a week and then going home to an anxious parent Um you know she says "How does an anxious parent an anxious child?" Tanya you did not make your kid anxious They're growing up surrounded by you know in a in a con in the in the context of techn major technology companies that you know your kids probably have smartphones and they're probably on them all the time and they're being encouraged literally through apps every single minute to get out of their lives and into their phones Um I'm I hope that you've seen Jonathan hate's seinal and very important work the anxious generation where he shows a causal effect a causal effect between technology use and anxiety and you know parents in the modern era we did not c we did not start the fire as you know as Billy Joel once famously said um this is this is not something that we started there is a lot we can do to make it a little bit better um but please don't blame yourself and uh and if you want to start sharing more of your journey with me and I would love to hear it Great Um Jean says "Are well and I think you addressed this you know in the in the presentation a bit but are medications necessary for dealing with anxiety or is it just a matter of recognizing it dealing with it in more organic and dealing with it in more organic or behavioral ways such as exercising or turning off the news or something like that?" Great question So I tried to address this during my talk but I'll see if I can just uh eek out a couple more sound bites If anxiety is interfering with your life using medication to get it to a middle range where you can function daytoday and then learn to deal with and face the rest to create closer connection more insight into yourself and more resilience then that to me is the recipe That to me is the pathway If you can function day-to-day with your high anxiety you might not need it Now I'll just talk about myself personally I've been blessed not not to use uh anxiety medications because I've been doing this for 20 years and I know these skills Last year two years ago I had some major financial anxiety actually And it took my anxiety up to a seven maybe even an eight out of 10 And I thought to myself you know what David you might have to actually use some medications to be able to do this But I used my skills having written a book on it and spent two and a half decades studying focusing on this dealing with it and having thank God an amazingly supportive wife and community and spiritual mentors So I was very well equipped But if I didn't have that practice there's no question no no question that I personally would have taken medications at that time in my life to get it down to a four or a five or maybe a six and then to be able to deal with the rest But um for most people if you're at a seven eight or nine yeah you're going to need something I'm curious about those people who've felt anxiety their whole life and so as it steadily grows um how do you how do you give yourself a number of seven eight or nine when you think oh it's just something harder that I have to get over and then it'll it'll go away you know that's part of the identify once we actually sit and think about our anxiety we realize that there are there there are gradations if you don't like the one through nine just use high medium and low okay and ask yourself right now Is your anxiety high medium or low Personally I'm in Las Vegas today as you can probably tell from the background and I'm giving a talk at an HR conference It's new territory for me I haven't done a lot of corporate speaking so I'm a little bit anxious today I would say I'm in like a low medium range like around a four Um but um that's because of that's very normal and I think very healthy given the fact of where I am and uh and uh what I have what I have up today So ask yourself the same question High medium or low Where are you at Brandon Where are you at today Um I would say low to medium Okay In this current moment yes low to medium Okay That's a that's a very healthy place to be Um because you can use it's easier to metabolize lower levels of anxiety Higher levels are just harder to use But once you have the skills you could use them too It's just you need more skills Yeah that makes sense Thank you Um Matt is saying "Is there a connection between anxiety and ADHD?" Great question Um a lot of parents asked this question today The the brief answer is yes Um often um firstly almost every kid these days is diagnosed with some form of ADHD So that's a different discussion in of itself Um but anxiety can certainly interfere with attention and also hyperactivity often rambunctious kids who especially if they're being aggressive have a lot of anxiety but they're not talking about their anxiety They're acting aggressively They don't want to talk about their anxiety They're not identifying it and they're not sharing it They're certainly not embracing it So instead they'll act out In fact we have a word for this It's called the fight orflight response right Fight or flight response So that aggression that we often see in ADHD and this obviously goes beyond today's presentation can definitely be mediated by anxiety And the same thing with inattention and difficulty shifting focus When people are anxious it's like you're it's kind of like you load up the random access the random access memory in your in your phone by having extra apps So imagine having an anxiety app alongside three or four other things You have to shift and toggle between those two things It's going to slow down your processing speed So those are a couple of um sound bites around ADHD and anxiety I have a lot more to share on that um but uh you know goes beyond goes beyond today Yeah Okay Corey is wondering um about the relationship between control and anxiety Yes Corey says "Were you saying that exposure to things that cause adrenaline rushes will help lessen your anxiety or just give you tools to help you lessen your anxiety?" Uhuh Great question Corey you're you you you definitely figured out what I was trying to say Um it's really both When we are out of control and we accept that it creates an opportunity to develop our humility our virtues our leaning into it and accepting lack of control and in of itself it helps us to deal with anxiety So really the answer to your question is both That's to me the the deepest tool and it's one that I myself struggle with how to actually let go Um I think we all do in some regards Uh but it is so powerful It's such a powerful um approach and when we do so it just it opens up creativity and new ideas and new vistas for our lives because we're not getting bogged down in that which we can't control We're really focusing on the very little that we can Great Thank you Adi says "How do you deal with others when they want you to change your behavior in an attempt to control their own anxiety?" Oh yes Dealing with others Um I have a whole section in my workshop about this Um here I'll just go back to that slide Um what the the four-part the workshop is uh focused on identify and then share embrace and let go The share part the share module is about interpersonal um development in in anxiety and how we deal with other people's anxiety and our own when others want us to change Um briefly if you can share that their pestering you makes you anxious If they're going to hear it great If they're not going to hear it then that's probably a couple's therapy or a relationship therapy or at least an individual therapy kind of situation Um but it's great you're asking you're asking the right question Um and without more information I I don't know the answer but it's something in that general direction Yeah Okay I think we have time for maybe one last question Let's see Virginia from Upper Dublin Library um says "As I age my anxiety seems to be increasing Any tip for seniors?" But likewise Sheila would like to know how to address anxiety when being the caregiver of their senior parent Yes Um both of you thank you for your questions Uh the best advice I have especially for older adults is to connect with others in a real emotional vulnerable way to the best that you can Um for caregivers talk to other caregivers It's often hard to sort of uh talk about the stress of caregiving with the person you're giving care to That wouldn't be caregiving Um but you need support Um and that means speaking to other people who are in the sandwich generation of taking care of kids and parents or other people who are in caregiving responsibilities and roles And for older adults connect with others Speak We need others You know this is this is the magic of anxiety in many ways The primary magic of anxiety is how it can create create human connection when we use it in in the right way Um although of course it can do other things for us as well as I've tried to share Yeah Thank you so much for your time today What an what an incredible hour we are I I know I learned so much Um everybody should definitely um pick up your book and check out your workshops Um so thank you so much for being here Thanks for having me What an awesome hour Have a wonderful day everyone Yes I want to um extend that huge thank you to all of our audience members for joining us today Without your support none of this would be possible So we thank you for choosing to spend your time with us below the live stream video in the resources area you can find a link to the book I was talking about and maybe Dr Rosemary and you can send me the links for um your workshop as well and I can get that in the resources area We look forward to everyone joining us on May 14th for an evening of thrill and mystery when we chat with author Lean Zang about her book Julie Chan is Dead and again on May 21st when we talk to bestselling author Michelle Bergstein about her book The Genius of Judy Bloom Be sure to register for these and lots of other great events on your libraries event page I am Brandon Adler and thank you for joining us [Music] [Applause] [Music]